Ray Ewry

Raymond Clarence "Ray" Ewry (October 14, 1873 - September 29, 1937) was an American track and field athlete. Having won 10 Olympic gold medals, he is the most successful Olympic athlete of all time.

Ewry was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and was contracted with polio as a young boy. For a short while, he was in a wheelchair, and it was feared that he might become paralysed for life.

However, Ewry did his own exercises and overcame his illness. After receiving a graduate degree in engineering at Purdue University, he became a member of the New York Athletic Club. There, he specialised in now defunct events, the standing jumps: the standing high jump, the standing long jump and the standing triple jump. These events are identical to their normal versions, but are contested without a run-up.

Ewry proved to be the best standing jumper in the world. At his first Olympics, held in Paris (1900), he won gold medals in all three standing jumps. Incidentally, all three finals were held on the same day (July 16).

At the 1904 Summer Olympics, Ewry successfully defend all three of his titles. The standing triple jump event was discontinued after those Olympics, but Ewry continued to dominate the two remaining standing jump events at both the 1906 and 1908 Games, thus bringing his total to 10 Olympic titles. It should be noted that the 1906 Games are currently not officially recognised by the IOC, although they were organized by the IOC. Most historians do consider them as real Olympics, though. The standing jumping events were no longer held in the Olympics after 1912.

Ewry's superiority is also displayed by the fact that his world record in the standing long jump (3.47 m) was still standing when the event was discontinued internationally in the 1930s.

Ewry featured on a 1990 US stamp

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